It’s 4:30 Friday afternoon, you’ve had a tough week and you just realized you have a 5:00 interview with a job applicant. Moan.

It’s 9:45 Monday morning, one of your employees has not shown up for work, you’re trying to juggle things so all the bases are covered, and you’ve got an interview scheduled for 10:00. Groan.

Do you think the applicant is likely to get a fair hearing in either one of these scenarios?

In the real world there is probably no perfect time to interview and, if there were, it’s likely something unexpected would happen to ruin it. The best you can do is recognize the problem, tell yourself to give the candidate a fair hearing, and try not to let outside pressures influence your attentiveness during the interview or your evaluation of the applicant.

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